It was heavily abused and served no purpose on this forum. I've been meaning to remove it for a while. Recent events have caused me to finally do it.

It is not the purpose of karma to allow people to downrate posts when they simply disagree with them when the post itself is well thought out and formed. Especially on this forum where we want to encourage users to give us their feedback without fear of reprisal from some group of users with a mob mentality.

Admins maintain their ability to rate posts on this forum. I routinely rate up people who give clear, concise and useful feedback. Even if I strongly disagree with it. Except Rog.

It is not the purpose of karma to allow people to downrate posts when they simply disagree with them when the post itself is well thought out and formed.

Have you seen the rest of the site?

Karma is broken and has been since ever. It serves no real purpose anymore. Bad posts get reported and removed. Sub-default posts are read anyway, because most people have the filter set to Never. Rating others up and down is only used to voice agreement and disagreement. And with enough posts, it doesn't matter what people rate you.

I'm not saying it should go, but the problem you saw on this forum is also a problem everywhere else.

Edited, Nov 30th 2010 10:28pm by Mazra

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Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.

It is not the purpose of karma to allow people to downrate posts when they simply disagree with them when the post itself is well thought out and formed.

Have you seen the rest of the site?

Karma is broken and has been since ever. It serves no real purpose anymore. Bad posts get reported and removed. Sub-default posts are read anyway, because most people have the filter set to Never. Rating others up and down is only used to voice agreement and disagreement. And with enough posts, it doesn't matter what people rate you.

I'm not saying it should go, but the problem you saw on this forum is also a problem everywhere else.

Edited, Nov 30th 2010 10:28pm by Mazra

We're aware and have been discussing what to do about it. forum=3 is a different forum than most though so it was safe for me to remove the ability to rate from it without notice.

We're aware and have been discussing what to do about it. forum=3 is a different forum than most though so it was safe for me to remove the ability to rate from it without notice.

I posted some of this in the thread in =10, but I figured it was relevant here as well:

There's a vBulliten-based board that I frequent that uses a reputations system. You can only dole out so much rep per 24 hours. You have to spread it around before you can give rep to the same poster again, and negative rep is reserved basically for flagrant abuse of board rules. Basically, those who make the most knowledgeable posts or what have you end up with a lot of positive rep, but those who aren't popular or whatever aren't penalized by having people bomb them with negative rep. They just don't get rated very often.

The other thing about the vBulliten rep system the other board uses is that you see who gave you rep in your User CP. When you take the anonymity out of the equation, people are generally less downrate happy. Also, while positive rep does not require a comment to be given out, negative rep does require you to put a comment in there or it won't go through. Basically, you have to justify your reasoning.

Combine this with some Like/Dislike buttons on individual posts that don't affect the posters' rep so people can continue to anonymously voice their agreement or displeasure with a post (because people do like to be able to say "I hate this" with a single click), and add in a thread rating system where you can rate the thread overall on a 5-star scale.

Does it really matter in the end? As long as people have the opportunity to voice their disagreement with another person through some sort of penalty system, however small that penalty might be, they're going to use and abuse it. In some forums, the same goes for positive ratings.

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Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.

Also, while positive rep does not require a comment to be given out, negative rep does require you to put a comment in there or it won't go through. Basically, you have to justify your reasoning.

Surely the most common reason is ".", right?

No, there's a minimum amount of characters, and the admins spank you if you don't have a valid reason for neg-repping someone.

Minimum characters doesn't do jack sh*t. And i'm pretty sure alla is too big for that to be possible here.

Since the person who is on the receiving end can see who sent the rep and what the comment is, all it will take are a few 24-hr norates and some warnings when the system is initially implemented before it will calm down.

Or you could just not have a negative reputation option. Just have the Report Post button, and if something is so flagrant it deserves negative rep, the admins can impose it when they nuke the post.

Also, while positive rep does not require a comment to be given out, negative rep does require you to put a comment in there or it won't go through. Basically, you have to justify your reasoning.

Surely the most common reason is ".", right?

No, there's a minimum amount of characters, and the admins spank you if you don't have a valid reason for neg-repping someone.

Minimum characters doesn't do jack sh*t. And i'm pretty sure alla is too big for that to be possible here.

Since the person who is on the receiving end can see who sent the rep and what the comment is, all it will take are a few 24-hr norates and some warnings when the system is initially implemented before it will calm down.

Or you could just not have a negative reputation option. Just have the Report Post button, and if something is so flagrant it deserves negative rep, the admins can impose it when they nuke the post.